Russia is seeing a wave of demonstrations in areas with high ethnic minority populations against President Vladimir Putin’s call for “partial mobilisation”. Analysts say this approach is undermining the Kremlin’s legitimacy among these groups and is likely to give Russia poorly motivated soldiers for its war against Ukraine.
In Russia’s Caucasian Dagestan region near the Georgian border, protesters managed to block traffic on September 25. More than 7,000 kilometres away, in the Buryatia region just north of the Mongolian border, a group called the Free Buryatia Foundation has been set up to help reservists avoid the “partial mobilisation” Putin announced after Ukraine’s lightning gains in the east.
